‘They change a lot,’ Sy said.
Hatcher nodded again. ‘I’m sure of it,’ he said.
‘This is American and Thai girl?’ Sy asked.
‘No. The man was an American flier, but the girl was Vietnamese.’
‘Ah,’ Sy said. He stared at the picture for at least a minute and then nodded and passed it back to Hatcher.
As they drove through the crowded streets, Hatcher reflected on his plan. First, try t find the girl, since she was the only person who had actually seen both Wol Pot and Windy Porter’s killers. Then he would start checking out Porter’s surveillance locations to see if that produced anything. Near the top of the list was the section called Tombstone and the Longhorn Bar. The subject of Thai Horse was touchy, since it involved street gossip. Was there really a Thai Horse, and if so, was it a gang? A man? Wol Pot or Cody? Or someone new? Because Hatcher could not tie it directly to Cody, he would play that by ear.
The trip to Phadung Klong took only a few minutes; the intersection was a few blocks away, just past the sprawling produce market now almost deserted for the day and across a short arched bridge at the klong. It took Sy three stops and the better part of an hour talking to river people to get a lead on the girl.
‘They say she works closer to Rama Four Road,’ he said returning to the car. ‘We find her, mai pen rai,’
They drove parallel to the klong, separated from it by thick banyan trees, flowering orchids and shacks built on stilts over the banks of the river. At Rama Four, Sy parked the car and disappeared. down the bank of the Hong. He was gone for another fifteen minutes.
‘She has moved to Klong Mahachai,’ he said when he got back. ‘But it will be difficult to locate her until tonight. We should find her near the Maharaj Road crossing close to the Thieves’ Market in Chinese Town.’
At dusk they drove to Maharaj Road, and Sy once again scouted the banks of the klong. He was gone only a few minutes this time.
‘We have luck,’ he said proudly. ‘Come.’
He led Hatcher along the edge of the klong, past several boats.
‘You be careful, okay, pheuan?’ Sy said. ‘Sometime the girl boss he looks to steal your money, watch, you know? But I be behind you,’ he said, pointing down the row of snakeboats and houseboats that were tied to the bank and to one another. There were many young women sitting in the bows of the boats, smiling, appraising, inviting a bid from the crowds along the canal. Hatcher followed Sy as they threaded through the crowd of gaping tourists that was already beginning to gather on the bank and past several boats until the little Thai stopped a man who was heading upstream with a fishing pole.
‘Sukhaii?’ Sy asked ‘You know which is her boat?’
The old man smiled gleefully, nodding vigorously, and pointed over Sy’s shoulder to a long boat practically at their feet.
‘My trip,’ Hatcher said and walked uncertainly across the first hang yao and past a muscular Thai, who stared at his chest as he passed but did not look at his face. He scrambled aboard the second boat as a young girl, no more than sixteen, came from under the thatched hooch at the rear. Lowering her head slightly, she stared at him over her nose. Her eyes got dusky brown. She had it down to a science.
‘Sukhaii?’ Hatcher asked.
‘You know my name?’ she said, surprised.
Hatcher nodded. ‘Chai,’ he said.
‘You want do some sanuk?’ she asked in shattered English. She pulled him close and rubbed against him, still smiling. She was warm and soft to the touch and had a sprig of jasmine behind her ear. For a moment Hatcher thought about having little sanuk with her. He gently took her by the arm so she wouldn’t bolt and held up an American fifty-dollar bill.
‘I am not here for fun,’ he said in Thai.
The girl look startled and tried to pull away from him.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘fifty dollars American. That’s one thousand bahts, two purples. You want this?’
The girl stared at the fifty and Hatcher dropped her arm.
The muscular Thai in the other boat stared casually across the deck at them but said thing.
‘What for?’ she asked cautiously.
‘There was a man here the other night when the killing occurred in the next boat. He jumped overboard.’
‘Chai. .
‘What did he look like?’
The girl thought for a moment and held her hand out, about five and half feet above the deck.
‘This tall. Very brown eyes. Black hair. Thin face. About like you heavy.’
‘Built like me but shorter?’
‘Chai.’
‘Any scars — uh, marks on his face or body?’
Sukhaii’s eyebrows rose. ‘Ah chai, chai . . . he has dragon. Here.’
She laid her hand on her chest
‘A tattoo of a dragon?’
She nodded.
‘Now, this guy, he was in a big hurry, yes?’
She nodded her head vigorously. ‘He was afraid.’ ‘I’m sure. Now, the way I see it, he didn’t have time to get dressed before he went swimming,’ Hatcher whispered.
She looked at him suspiciously but did not answer.
‘He probably didn’t take his clothes with him—’
‘Chai, chai, took clothes—’
‘Mai,’ Hatcher said, shaking his head. ‘No time.’
‘I told police—’
‘I am not the police. I don’t care .what you told the police. And I do not tell the police anything.’
‘I tell police everything,’ she said defiantly.
‘I think perhaps he may have left his pants behind—’
She shook her head frantically.. ‘Mai, mai. No wallet.’
‘I didn’t say anything about a wallet,’ Hatcher said softly.
The young girl was beginning to panic. She looked past Hatcher at the Thai on the other boat.
‘Look here, I’m not from the police, I am Amehricaan,’ Hatcher said. ‘All I want are the ID papers that were in the wallet. I don’t care about anything else, you can keep the money or anything else of value. I just want the papers, understand?’
Her eyes shifted behind him again. He turned. The Thai stood near the port side of the boat but did not come aboard. He was dressed in a purple pakoma, a kind of man’s sarong-pants and a white cotton tank shirt. There was a large tattoo of an orchid with a snake entwined around it on his right forearm. He smiled briefly at Hatcher and then looked at the girl.
‘What does he want?’ the man asked Sukhaii in Thai.
Hatcher interjected. ‘I was offering the young woman fifty American dollars for the identification papers in a wallet left here the other night. No questions asked. I’ll forget I was ever here, okay? No police. It is personal. All I want are the papers.’
The Thai came aboard and walked close to Hatcher. He was two or three inches shorter— but his body was hard and veins etched his biceps. He studied Hatcher’s face for a full minute through eye the color of mud. Behind him, Sy stepped on the other boat, waving away the water babies and vendors who squawked at him.
The tattooed man lowered his eyes and said, ‘You wallet?’
Hatcher shook his head. ‘Mai.’
‘You friend’s wallet?’
Hatcher did not lie. He shook his head again. ‘Chai.’
‘Huh,’ the Thai said. He stepped past Hatcher and whispered to the young prostitute. She stared up at him for several moments and nodded. ‘How much?’ he asked and she whispered, ‘Ten thousand bahts.’
Five hundred dollars, thought Hatcher, and the girl was probably holding back another hundred or two. Wol Pot did okay.
‘Why did you keep it from the police?’ the Thai whispered.
‘I thought he might come back,’ she lied, and he said, ‘Then get it and I will deal with the farang.’
He did not say the word for foreigner with any contempt and he was perfectly at ease and relaxed, as if he and Hatcher were old friends. If his whore’s swiping the wallet upset
him, it didn’t show. He motioned Hatcher inside the hooch, so the other river people could not see them. Nervously Sy moved closer.
Sukhaii went to a chest, took out a snakeskin wallet and gave it to the Thai, who opened it, took out a handful of purple bahts, and stuffed them in his pocket.
‘I am sorry,’ she said repentantly. He shrugged and said casually, ‘Mai pen rai,’ motioned her to leave and then leafed through the wallet and found a small gold amulet in one of the compartments. It joined the money. He looked back at Hatcher.
‘Sixty dollars American,’ he said. His smile grew a little larger. Hatcher had forgotten that in Thailand the first price was never the final one.
‘Khit waa phaeng pai,’ Hatcher answered, as was expected of him. ‘Fifty-five,’ he countered.
The Thai’s smile grew larger still and he shrugged. ‘Fifty-seven, if it is what you want,’ he said with a broad, broken-toothed grin and handed the wallet to Hatcher to check, and Hatcher leafed quickly through the contents.
‘Good,’ he said, handing the Thai the fifty-seven dollars. ‘Khop kun. Sawat-dii.’
‘Now, one more thing,’ Hatcher said to the girl, taking out a twenty-dollar bill, ‘another twenty American if you will tell me what the man with the knife said to you.’
‘He said nothing!’ she cried out quickly.
But the Thai was eyeing the twenty. He looked at the bill and then looked out of the hooch at the river for several seconds. ‘Tell him.’
‘But they said —,
‘Tell him!’
The girl was almost out of breath with fear. ‘They said they would cut my face until I looked like a grandmother,’ she said weakly, staring at the floor.
‘Why would they do that?’
‘If I told the police anything about them.’
‘What else?’
‘They asked if I knew an address’
‘Whose address?’
‘It did not make sense. It was the horse in the myth.’
‘Thai Horse?’ Hatcher asked eagerly. The girl nodded. The Thai reached out slowly and plucked the twenty from Hatcher’s fingers. The seventy-seven dollars joined the rest of the booty. Then the Thai reached to the back of his belt and brought out a teak billy club a foot long. He stood four or five feet in front of Hatcher and smacked the club in the palm of his hand.
‘Maybe you give me rest of money or maybe you gold Rolex, hey?’ the Thai said, still smiling.
Hatcher backed up a foot or so. His body began to tense up and his eyes narrowed. Not another sateng,’ Hatcher whispered hoarsely.
The smile stayed, but the Thai’s eyes got a little crazy. He spread his feet and stood with the club held out at his side.
‘I hurt you,’ the Thai pimp said.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when Sy jumped on the boat behind him. The Thai spun around and took a hard backhand swipe at Sy but it was wide, and before he could swing again, Sy kicked him twice, hard kicks, one in the chest, one on the point of his jaw. The Thai fell back against Hatcher but jabbed the stick underhand into Hatcher’s stomach. Though the blow glanced off Hatcher’s side, it caught him off guard, and the Thai broke loose and charged Sy. The little man hit him with three hard jabs straight from the shoulder. The Thai’s head bobbed, but the punches did not stop him. He kept coming. He grabbed Sy in a bear hug and lifted him off the deck. Before he could throw him overboard, Hatcher reached out and dug iron fingers into the Thai’s shoulder. He dug deep, found the nerve he was seeking and ground it against the Thai’s shoulder blade.
The Thai was temporarily paralyzed. His arms dropped, the club clattered on the deck and Sy twisted loose, stepped back a step and hit him in the face with a double combination: whip, whip whip, whip.
The Thai staggered backward clutching a bleeding nose and fell against the side of the hooch. The small shack collapsed, and he toppled to the deck covered with bamboo strips and lay dazed for a moment. Hatcher stooped over him, picked up the billy and tossed it into the river. The Thai wiped the blood off his surprised face.
‘I am boxer,’ Sy said and motioned to Hatcher to follow him off the hang yao.
Hatcher looked down at the stricken Thai and smiled. ‘Sawat dii,’ he said with a half-assed salute.
They went back up the bank of the klong with Sy strutting ahead of him, brushing aside the roving vendors and prostitutes. When they got to the car, he held the door open for Hatcher.
‘You looked real good in there, pheuan’ Hatcher said and crawled into the sedan. He went through the papers and found the passport. According to the information on it, Wol Pot was five six, weighed 154 pounds and lived on Raiwong Road, which was in Chinese Town. But Hatcher had something even better than a description.
He was staring down at the passport photograph of Wol Pot, the Vietnamese whose real name was Taisung, the commandant of the Huie-kui prison camp.
ROGUE TIGER
He would come to be known as Old Scar. He lay in the tall grass at the edge of the pond watching the chital stag rutting in the mud fifty feet away. He had been stalking the herd for three hours, sometimes lying motionless for thirty or forty minutes at a time as they moved down through the sandy nullah and out of the ravine into the flat plain and from there through the ten-foot-high bamboo grove to the water hole.
In his day, Old Scar had been a magnificent tiger, over five hundred pounds, faster than any male within a hundred miles, indomitable, and so powerful he had once brought down a seven-hundred-pound buffalo and hauled it with his iron jaws almost a quarter of a mile to his family and then hid the carcass twenty feet above the ground in a tree. This had been some tiger.
Now he was old and crippled by rheumatism. Old battle wounds ached when he crawled. His teeth were yellow and one of his cuspids was broken off. And a huge, ragged scar etched his face from between his eyes down the side of his muzzle to his jaw, the signature of a younger, more aggressive male who would have killed any other tiger of that age and infirmity. But Old Scar had still been a little too tough for the young buck, and he had shown enough stuff to take a draw and walk away from the fight with only his wound.
Old Scar carefully placed one enormous paw in front of the other, creeping by inches toward the unsuspecting deer so as not to rustle the dry leaves under him. For all his twenty-two years he had hunted the same way, with the stealth and patience and speed he had learned watching his mother. He was moving by pure instinct now. Except that all his tricks were failing him.
The stag raised his head suddenly and sniffed the air. There was no wind, so he had not yet picked up the tiger’s scent, but he was wary. The herd was spread out and knee-deep in the water. They knew better than to go any deeper, for the pond was also the home of several crocodiles. But they were vulnerable and the big five- hundred-pound buck was responsible.
Old Scar was rigid in his crouch. His once powerful legs were hugged up against his belly, ready to spring, his ears forward, his tail erect. But he had lost his touch and a leaf crackled suddenly under him; the chital spooked and ran, and the herd scattered with it. Old Scar charged after the stag as it darted this way and that, turning suddenly back toward the water. Old Scar dodged with the chital, got inside its turn and was within striking distance. But as he made his big move the stag kicked out both its rear legs. One hoof caught Old Scar in the right eye and the pupil burst like a marble exploding. The tiger roared with pain, took one futile, prideful swipe of his mighty paw and missed by a mile.
The stag and the herd were gone.
Old Scar collapsed in the water, roaring with the pain in his legs and shoulders and from the eye he had just lost to a deer. He rested, panting, in the warm water for an hour and then dragged himself to the muddy banks and rolled in the soft, wet earth to heal his aching body.
The situation was getting desperate. It was his twentieth try in two days, and his twentieth miss. The day before, a careless lemur had moved within striking distance and then had outrun him, dashing up a tree to safe
ty. There had been a time when Old Scar could have taken the tree in three bounds. But he had wearily turned in defeat and skulked away from the monkey’s shrieked insults. Old Scar was very hungry.
The herd did not return, and finally he decided to move to another watering hole. He was going back into the territory of another young male, but Old Scar had no choice. He was too tired to go any farther. As he stalked carefully through the brush, a sharp scent stung his nostrils. It was an odor that stirred old longings in the tiger. The smell of a tigress in estrus. And then he heard her growling, a strange, demanding and instantly seductive call, and he heard the male answer her from nearby. Old Scar hunched down and crept forward, peering through the tall grass and saw the female approach the male, begin to nuzzle him, arouse him, and then she lay down and he straddled her. Old Scar watched, remembering his younger days when the females wanted him and flirted with him.
Old Scar moved on, picking up another scent. Chital. He could smell its fresh blood and he knew the male had been lured away from his dinner by the female. He crept forward, following the scent of the freshly killed deer until he found it, hidden deep in a bamboo thicket where even the vultures could not see it.
Old Scar lay on his empty belly and as hungry as he was he fastidiously dressed the dead animal as all tigers do. He started at the rear, licking away the blood, then ripping into the rump with his shearing teeth, pulling out the intestines with his incisors, and cleaning the bones with a tongue like sandpaper.
Old Scar could put away forty pounds of food a day. He had not eaten in three days, and he consciously kept from purring as he ate so as not to attract the male. He could hear the other two cats screaming in ecstasy and he knew it was safe to keep eating. But then he heard the other male rolling over and snorting. Still hungry, the old giant crept off through the tall grass. He knew he could not survive another fight with a young tiger. It was getting dark, so he found a hollow tree and slept the night.
Now he had been wandering aimlessly for two more days, unsuccessfully seeking food, and his hunger was turning to anger. Then Old Scar found himself in a place that was vaguely familiar. He began to recognize landmarks and remembered things from his youth. This was where he had begun life, where his mother had taught him all the tricks before sending him out to find his own territory.